This chapter reveals that the operability, correctness, and reliability of technical processes are essential qualities in industrial control systems. They are important to both process and systems during design, start-up, operation, maintenance and repair. To ensure a process is working properly, it is necessary to perform state monitoring, device testing, component installation, system
... [Show full abstract] configuration, instrument calibration, and fault diagnosis. To do these functions, an industrial control system requires software and hardware known as system routines. The routines are implemented in system firmware, which is a combination of software and hardware. The concept of “firmware” has evolved to mean almost any programmable content of a hardware device, not just machine code, but also configurations and data for application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), programmable logic devices, etc. Firmware involves very basic, low-level operations, without which an electronic device would not work. It is the low-level nature of firmware that makes it able to support system routines.
